Khan Academy ’s aim is to provide free world-class education for everyone, everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re a student, parent, teacher, home-schooler or just any one with an interest to learn, Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available
to you completely free of charge. Students can utilize its extensive library of content which includes interactive challenges, assessments and videos on Math and Science topics and even covers Humanities, Finance and History. Coaches, parents and teachers can easily see what their students are learning and doing on Khan Academy.
To make effective use of Khan Academy for their children, parents should frame it as a fun activity instead of studying or a chore. One of the simplest ways to motivate children is by helping them set milestones. Regardless of high-level objectives, children should be focused by working with them to structure/breakdown the main objective into small-sized milestones that can be accomplished in short time periods. Some parents further engage their children by developing family-oriented activities related to Khan Academy. For instance, parents can pick up a new topic on Khan Academy to learn along with their children, they can watch a video and have dinner time discussions about it, parents can compete with their kids or let the siblings compete with each other, they can learn topics separately and role-model good learning habits.
Parents can also choose to offer their children with rewards associated with positive learning behavior. The rewards can be such that, they can allow their kids to choose the next topic, allow them to create a KA (Khan Academy) Computer Science program as a game or artwork. If they want to help their children with the content then they should try to learn the material along with them, show them the enthusiasm to learn and role-model that learning is a lifelong process. KA provides a personalized learning dashboard for parents, where they can find curated tutorials across subjects with lessons, skills practice and explorations and real-time individual child data to track progress.
Here’s how parents can use Khan Academy:
To start using Khan Academy, you should sign up to create an account using an Email address, so you’re able to try out all its functionality. Now, you can explore topics, add children to the roster, access reports and detailed performance data in real-time and find the best practices on using KA with your child.
After creating your own account and exploring the site, sign up your child for individual accounts. All accounts for ages 13+ have full coach and learner functionality. For children under 13, a Child Account is created which have restricted or modified features to protect the child’s privacy.
For Math, if your aim is to provide a fun, educational activity for your child, the first time your child logs in, they will be asked to take a pretest after which their homepage will suggest skills personalized for them. You should encourage them to explore and try out new areas as well.
If your child needs extra practice on specific skills, you can search for those skills in the search box or check out the Common Core mapping to see how specific Khan Academy content aligns with your child’s grade level curriculum.
KA is beneficial for non-Math areas as well. You can use the search box to find relevant content for such areas. Other topics that are offered are Science and Economics, Computer Science, Humanities, Test Prep for SAT, GMAT, IITJEE and more.
You can check on stats using the KA stat reports to find out how much time your child is spending on KA, what they’re focusing at and in which areas they’re struggling.
You can have routine check-ins by working with your child to establish milestones on what they will accomplish in a short set time period. You can keep a physical notebook or tracking list to track milestones and mark them off when complete.
Use the data provided in KA to identify your child’s strengths and help him overcome challenges. You can acknowledge an impressive badge that was recently earned, or encourage your child to take the hints or watch a video for a skill that he/she might be struggling with.
Learn along with your child to role-model what lifelong looks like.
Advocate for them by talking to their teachers or other coaches about how to get involved and be supportive, or how Khan Academy can be integrated into their formal education.
You will see the same data as your child will see. You can visit your profile to see your own learning progress and that of your child to see his progress through achievements like badges attained, activity reports and more.
There are many benefits that you parents can have of using Khan Academy for your children, like you can strengthen your child’s knowledge and fill in gaps in their learning, build their confidence and engagement in learning, access detailed data about their learning progress and save money by using all of the resources for free. You can use Khan Academy as a reference to help clarify complex teaching concepts, to reteach and review concepts, use its bank of practice problems to supplement homework and to give your child experience in learning from others.
What are your ways of using Khan Academy for yourself as well as for your children? Could the listed ways help you out? Share your experiences, ideas and knowledge in the Comment Box.
